Help with the Moon

Hi all -

Any suggestions on shooting images of the moon with my current setup. I have a 60D and 70-300mm F/4-5.6 IS and a good tripod.

I took a few shots and they were pretty grainy so I tossed em.

tx

Justin

f/5.6 is going to be tough with an older camera and hand held.

To lower the ISO get a good tripod, use mirror lock up and 2 second delay.

Not that old of a camera... mine is much older.... and the moon is bright so f/5.6 is not an issue either for you.

Tripod, mirror lockup, Start with: ISO 100, SS 1/125, f/11 go from there.

With more than 1/2 the moon showing, go ISO 800, f6.3, and shutter speed of around 1/200th or so, and make sure lens is good quality with IS.

High ISO isn't terrible if you know how to manage the post processing.

Examples from a camera sharing the same sensor:

I suggest use spot metering to figure out what exposure values to use. Start at f/5.6 at 300mm and a low ISO. I also highly recommend using mirror lock up and a remote trigger. Or mirror lock up and a shutter delay.

For a (near) full moon on a clear night I have use ISO400 1/640sec f/10. If you shoot in the same conditions at f/8, you could try ISO200 and 1/500sec.

Stacking multiple images also helps to reduce noise and bring out detail.

Thanks all - I will give some of these setting a try. It is pretty clear right now, but the moon is down to 1/2 so we'll see what it looks like. Otherwise I am going to need to wait a few weeks till the moon starts to come back.

All my shots were handheld, even with stacked TCs... I should have used a tripod however, but am too lazy.

Lol. Nice.

Heck, I don't even think my tripod is stable enough to hold a 5D4 with a grip, 2 TCs and the Sigma monster of a lens. What is all that, probably 15lbs? My results would probably be worse with my tripod, lol.

I agree with the "stacking in post", if noise is your biggest concern. Try stacking even just 10 pics, all with the same settings ... should clean up the noise 3x-ish.

I use registax to stack moon and planets. Be sure to crop all images to the same dimensions, and ideal if similarly orientated.

I have never stacked a set of pictures. Something new for me to try!

Justin_NJ wrote in post #18741423
I have never stacked a set of pictures. Something new for me to try!

I haven't either, at least not in this sense. Good thing to try for sure, as it works well for astrophotography in general.

It's revolutionised my lunar photography!

See examples below of single sub vs (sharpened) stack:

Nice, what is the best free version of software to do this? Also, is 10 frames about as low as you want to go in order to do this? I assume the more, the better? Also how long does it take a 6000x4000 series of images to merge?

Hey TeamSpeed,

I use registax, such is free and great! Though my computer (old pc) struggles a little with lots of images, especially if there is rotation differences between frames.

How many to stack? Up to you. I read a paper about SNR (signal to noise reduction) which approximates it as "1 to the square root". As below:

- 9 images: 3x cleaner
- 16: 4x
- 25: 5x ... 100: 10x

I've been stacking 15 mega pixel images, though sometimes crop the moon to help my old pc cope better.

- Daniel